Publishing a book on baptism is fraught with difficulty. Most of the books on baptism are written from a particular theological perspective. Some of them represent multiple views on baptism; however, those views are represented separately by different authors. Virtually everyone writing on the subject has the agenda of defending their view of baptism and are entrenched in their own positions. Battle lines are drawn, preparing to defend differing positions.

This is not a book about how to baptize. This is a book about why we baptize. Baptizing rightly is not so much a matter of practice as it is a matter of purpose. Baptismal practices have changed with the times and seasons of the church age. They have been adapted to various cultures and modified according to physical and social climates. Yet the purpose of baptism remains as universal as the symbol of water.

The Bible uses multiple images, or metaphors, to describe baptism. This book uses seven of them to look at baptism from multiple perspectives simultaneously. A multi-metaphor approach to baptism is like studying an object in three dimensions. One must look at it from every angle. Through these insights, author J. Elton Kolb presents a new way to have conversations about baptism.